terranationsfandomcom-20200214-history
Adam Bar
'Adam Bar '(1962 - present) is a Sednyanese socialist politician who has been the mayor of Cethen since July 2013. A controversial figure in Sednyanese politics, Bar managed to rally major support among the lower classes of the city of Cethen, resulting in the highest turnout for a municipal election in Sednyanese history, with 80.9% of Cethen's electorate turning out at the polls and leading to a surprising 2% victory over expected Social Democratic winner Dale Zaphren. Adam Bar is the first socialist to be the mayor of one of Sednyana's largest cities, and has been named as among the most influential socialist politicians in the world. Bar describes himself as a Haastian anarchist, and seeks to make the city of Cethen more like an anarchist state. Beginnings Bar was born and raised in a lower-class neighborhood of Cethen, living with three siblings and his single mother, Alexandra Millen. He barely knew his father, who was in prison when he was born and had an intermittent and occasionally violent relationship with Millen after his release. Despite his troubled home life, Adam performed relatively well in school, and placed into one of the city's competitive magnet schools. He was allegedly one of the school's best students, but became involved in drugs and ended up dropping out of high school at 16, to the disappointment of some of his teachers. At 17, he was caught by a police officer with a small amount of kashto, and taken to court and sentenced fourteen months in prison. Bar was allegedly heavily traumatized by his time in prison, where he realized the direction that his life seemed to be headed. He began spending as much time as he could in the prison library and talking to some of his fellow inmates about politics. Among the people he met in prison was George Dawson, a radical racial activist and self-described socialist who had been arrested for vandalizing and destroying the property of Cethenian politicians who he believed to be racist as a form of protest. Partially inspired by Dawson, Bar began getting involved with racial activism groups upon his release from prison. This was also where he first began talking to people in his community about socialism and alternative political systems. After getting out of prison, Bar began working several odd jobs and finishing his high school classes at the local community college. Three years later, he was able to transfer to Cethen State University in Cethen, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science. At the university, Bar was introduced to the work of Amyik von Haast, whose writings fascinated him. He also read extensively from Sednyanese black thinkers and philosophers and became increasingly passionate and educated on racial issues. Bar spent the next three years working as an organizer for the CEU (Cethenian Teachers' Union) and the CRAC (Cedar Race Activism Committee), a job that paid poorly but got Bar known amongst much of the black community in Cethen. But Bar began to feel discouraged by how much he could do as an organizer and began attending law school at Harrison University in Denam in 1986, obtaining his law degree in 1989 after which point he returned to Cethen and continued his work with the union, spearheading the expansion of the largely defunct and powerless United Labor Association of Cethen (ULAC). Representative In 1995, after six years of union work, Bar ran for state representative for Cedar's ninth district (including his home neighborhood of Sherman) and won in a landslide due to his popularity in the community as an organizer and public figure. He served two terms as an organizer before running for senator in Cedar's third congressional district as a Socialist. In the election, Bar interacted closely with the community and held wide open street-wide rallies and marches where he spun bold, aggressive and angry rhetoric. Narrowingly beating out his Social Democratic opponent, Bar became the only member of the Socialist party in the Sednyanese senate in 2001. Bar's completely unexpected win in a district that was ranked "non-competitive" - the Social Democratic party had won Cedar's third every election since the party's creation - brought him to the national stage, and led him to begin appearing on television shows. For the next year or two, Bar became a relatively infamous figure in Sednyanese politics, not only in opposition to the conservatives but also to the mainstream Social Democratics, whom he accused of benefiting from a racist and unfair system that they did not truly strive to abolish. Bar was a critic of the policies of Samuel Pacienza and openly supported the Socialist Party in the presidential elections. However, Bar was quickly relegated back to the fringe and denounced as a unrepresentative radical, even though he continued on to win the next several elections in his district. He returned to the national spotlight in 2013, when he announced his campaign for the Mayor of Cethen, a position that - while technically less important than Senator - he felt would allow him more control and direct impact in the community than as a Senator whose radicalism prevented him from making many compromises with other members of the Senate. Bar ran against incumbent Dale Zaphren, a white Social Democrat whom Bar claimed represented the moneyed interests of the city's elite. Bar campaigned aggressively, speaking out at many public events. He received wide criticism from across the political media, partly for his seeming unprofessionalism - Bar often made use of slang terms and obscenity in his speeches, and refused to put on what he called a "White accent" - and for his seemingly radical political positions. However, he gained a core group of admirers, particularly among Cethen's poor. He was lauded for his combination of traditional lower-class rhetoric with his wealth of academic knowledge, inserting passages from Haast, Krier and Waites in amongst urban slang.